Dan's Papers -November 6, 2009 - The Hampton Subway Newsletter

Jack Nicholson was seen in Amagansett on Halloween and overheard saying that he was in town to film scenes for his next movie. Later in the evening, it was learned that this person was just somebody dressed up as Jack Nicholson.

Subway Commissioner Aspinall has commissioned noted Springs sculptor Adrien Bordeaux to build the largest sculpture ever on a subway platform. Bordeaux's solution is a unique one. Having determined it impossible to get any sculpture the size he has in mind down the escalators, he will bring in the sculpture aboard the subway itself. Since subway cars are not very large either, he intends to jackhammer out part of the Amagansett platform to accommodate a spur of railroad tracks upon which a new stationary subway car can be pulled in and parked. He will retrieve a subway car from the Montauk Yards, drive it to Amagansett and park on the dead-end spur between the actual tracks and the platform. For art openings and viewings, straphangers will be able to enter from the shortened platform on one side and an in-use but stopped subway car on the other. The subway car will contain Bordeaux's smaller works, including 12 life-size bronze straphangers. Each month the bronze straphangers will be moved around to different parts of the car, and there will be a new art opening with wine and cheese. "The art will be the subway car itself and the arrangement of the bronzes within," Bordeaux says, explaining why the same sculpture deserves openings every month.

Because the wooden suggestion boxes we bolted to the subway platform walls keep getting stolen, we have established a system whereby riders can make suggestions without the boxes. Simply go to the laptop kiosks along the eastern walls of every platform, enter your password and type in your suggestions. They will be emailed to our main Hampton Bays office, where a team of clerks will read them and pass them along to the higher-ups.

Commissioner Aspinall is in Rio de Janeiro this week for the annual Worldwide Subway Council Meeting, and is expected to pick up another award for the Best Lighted Subway System, Northeastern United States Region for Cities of Less Than 200,000. He won it last year. The trophy is so large that he will have to buy it a second first-class seat on the plane when he flies back here next week.

A survey will be done next week to determine if the subway should close down the Mecox Station. Few people use it, and those who want to come near Mecox usually travel only a mile or two west and east, to Water Mill or Bridgehampton. It's expensive staffing the Mecox Sation in these hard times. We want to know what people think. Riders will be surveyed by interns with questionnaires at every station but Mecox next Saturday and Sunday.

Apparently, riders have been confused by the changes in our emergency evacuation warning signals. As a result, it will be a topic at our next board meeting, which will be held in the main office next Wednesday. Until then, there will be no emergency evacuation warning signals, so everybody is just on their own.

The souvenir book, One Year on the Hampton Subway, is selling well at all BookHampton stores throughout the Hamptons. Get your copy today. It's only $18.48, which, with tax, comes to $20.01. We tried making it come out to exactly $20, but we couldn't do it, was the problem.